Insiders Milk Black Lives Matter as Bankroll Dwindles

In the wake of the 2020 riots, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation received tens of millions from corporate America. Today, the group is still living off those funds, has trouble raising new money, and continues to operate to the personal benefit a small circle of insiders.

As reported by Andrew Kerr in the Washington Free Beacon:

BLM raised just $9.3 million in its 2022 fiscal year, down 88 percent from its haul the year prior. Black Lives Matter was forced to shut off its online fundraising streams in February 2022 due to compliance and transparency issues in several liberal states. The group has blown through two-thirds of the $90 million it raised in the wake of George Floyd’s death in the summer of 2020.

 

BLM spent about $12 million of those funds on luxury homes in Los Angeles and Toronto. That profligacy did not abate in the 2022 fiscal year, when the charity dropped more than $10.5 million on contractors, much of which went to companies linked to (BLM co-founder Patrisse) Cullors’s (in photo) friends and family.

Also from the article:

“While Patrisse Cullors was forced to resign due to charges of using BLM’s funds for her personal use, it looks like she’s still keeping it all in the family,” said Paul Kamenar, an attorney for the National Legal and Policy Center watchdog group.

Gabe Kaminsky in the Washington Examiner also covered the story. From his article:

Among those purchases was a swanky $6 million Los Angeles mansion where Cullors threw parties. The National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog, later alleged in an April 2022 IRS complaint that the BLM charity could face criminal or civil penalties for illegally using the mansion for the benefit of Cullors.

Also from the story:

“They were ill-prepared to manage the money,” National Legal and Policy Center CEO Peter Flaherty told the Washington Examiner.

 

His group filed two complaints last year with the attorneys general of California and Washington that accused the foundation of illegally fundraising. Both states warned the BLM charity in January 2022 that it must stop taking money from residents until it provides information in connection to its 2020 finances, the Washington Examiner reported.

 

“Cullors seemed confused when the cash came in,” Flaherty added. “She called it ‘white guilt’ money. They never really used the money to develop a way to advance their mission. They sat on it and are fighting over it. It’s obvious that it’s self-dealing and self-enrichment.”

 

“Whether the IRS will have the political will to review or revoke their tax-exempt status, I don’t know,” the watchdog CEO added. “But it’s clear to me they violated their tax-exempt purpose.”

Isabel Vincent in the New York Post also wrote about the latest filings:

“These latest revelations in audited financials and 990s [federal tax filings] prove the chaos we cited in our complaint with the IRS,” said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center, an ethics watchdog group.

 

The group filed a complaint against BLMGNF with the IRS last year for allegedly violating IRS rules prohibiting the use of nonprofit assets for private benefit, self-dealing, conflicts of interest and unlawful political fundraising,

In a separate article, Isabel and Sara Nathan, report:

Warner Bros Television Group secretly ended a multi-platform deal with Patrisse Cullors, the former leader of Black Lives Matter, The Post has learned.

 

The Post can reveal no shows were produced under the deal, despite Cullors saying she planned dramas, comedies, documentary series and animated programming for children.

Warner Brothers was among major corporations that embraced Black Lives Matter. In this case, the company lavished money on Cullors directly. When questioned in 2021 about where she got the money to buy four houses, she pointed to the Warner Brothers deal. It was apparently an even better deal that it appeared as she may have turned in no acceptable work.

BLM was an odd group of activists to begin with. Combining Marxism and transgenderism, the group caught lightning in a bottle with George Floyd’s death. They were in the right place at the right time but have limited long-term appeal.

The cause seems to linger in the form of yard signs in affluent, white suburbs but the organization’s moral authority is diminished. Its primary policy objective — to defund the police — is politically radioactive. Most elected officials who embraced the idea now pretend they never heard of it.